Decision Maker: Cabinet

Outcome: Recommendations Approved

Is Key Decision?: Yes

Is Callable In?: Yes

Date of Decision: October 14, 2025

Purpose: Following the recently published Peer Review on Public Protection Partnership this decision will deal with the future of the service arrangements

Content: RESOLVED that the Cabinet approves the following recommendations following the peer review:   a.     Bracknell Forest Council enter into a new three authority agreement with West Berkshire Council and Wokingham Borough Council until the 31st March 2029.   b.     That the agreement includes an exit clause based on a minimum of twelve months’ notice.   c.     The Cabinet agrees to extend the delegation of the Executive Functions undertaken by the Public Protection Service to the Joint Public Protection Committee until 31st March 2029.   d.     That in line with the recommendations of the peer review the host authority should remain West Berkshire Council to avoid significant short-term disruption.   e.     That an annual performance and service update report for the Service be considered by the Communities and Environment Scrutiny Panel.   f.      That the partners should not wait for the expiry of the existing agreements but enter into the new arrangement as soon as practically possible.   g.     That Wokingham Borough Council becomes a full Member of the Joint Public Protection Committee in line with the governance arrangements set out in the original inter-authority agreement of the 6th January 2017.

Reasons for the decision: A peer review of the existing Public Protect Partnership arrangements was conducted between October 2024 and January 2025. The review team concluded that the Service is focussed and effective in providing statutory regulatory services to protect residents. It also concluded that as a shared service it is delivering efficiencies and greater service resilience than individual authorities would be able to achieve. The review made a series of recommendations for all three partner authorities (Bracknell Forest, West Berkshire and Wokingham Borough Councils) to consider. A full summary of the findings of the review can be found here: Peer Review Recommendations

Alternative options considered: i.       Not to renew the partnership. This was discounted given the efficiencies and greater service resilience resulting from being in the partnership.   ii.     The savings from shared services arise from sharing the costs of management as well as systems such as ICT and subscriptions such as legal subscriptions etc. In addition, the critical mass that the shared service provides allows for it to access significant amounts of grant funding (currently around £400K per annum) as well as share cost bases with other authorities outside of the PPP e.g. financial investigation work, complex investigations, case management functions and other specialist functions such as animal feeding stuffs.   iii.    It is estimated that an injection of around £250-£300K would be needed to re-instate a stand-alone in-house service if operational capacity was not to be lost. This includes management costs of around £200K (including re-instating the Head of Service role), ICT costs and other licensing costs of around £50K and then lost grant income would need to be factored in. There will also likely be capital / project costs associated with system and data migration and set up and revenue programme costs associated with managing the disaggregation. More importantly all of the benefits arising from the original business case would be lost.   iv.    In addition, a decision to disaggregate the service would require a protracted HR process including full consultation with staff followed by TUPE transfer to individual partner authorities. The disruption will inevitably lead to the loss of some staff through retirement or seeking alternative roles. This may exacerbate the resource / skill challenges that will potentially arise from the loss of economies of scale. Should reorganisation ultimately effect BFC this would mean the staff going through this process twice in quick succession. The timing of this extension allows for a much clearer picture and set of options to emerge.